Free Republic

Mother's Day is Sunday. Traditionally, it is a day to honor and respect all that mothers do and sacrifice for the sake of their children. And while this day is important, special, and necessary, we can't help but wonder what our country would be like if we celebrated mothers every day. If mothers and babies were held in the highest regard, as they should be, each and every day of the year, think about the lives that could be spared. Think about the heartache that would not come about because a mother chose to abort her child. That would truly...

May 10, 2013 (HLIWorldWatch.org) - Polls show that most young people today, even those who identify themselves as Christians, have no problem with “same-sex marriage.” If young people today are at all aware of what the Catholic Church teaches about marriage and human sexuality, what they think they know is often only a caricature of the truth. They see it as simply a set of prohibitions established by men. But what the Church actually presents is a vision of the beauty of marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman who are committed for life and open...

WASHINGTON — Jews worldwide welcomed newly elected Pope Francis as a friend on Wednesday (March 13), and pointed in particular to his sympathetic and strong reaction to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in his native Argentina — the deadliest bombing in the country’s history. snip Benedict does not have a bad record with the Jews, Novak said, but he didn’t give it as much attention as Pope John Paul II, who called Jews the “elder brethren” of faith. “I would like to see a kind of renewal of Jewish-Catholic relations which I think reached a high point during...

Michael Moore Blasts Reagan and John Paul II Supporters as Bigots, Responsible for 'Deaths of Thousands' By Matthew Balan Created 01/09/2013 - 4:12pm On Monday, far-left director Michael Moore went on an anti-Catholic bender at an awards presentation, and also targeted "those who would deify Reagan and Pope John Paul II" as somehow to blame for "the deaths of thousands of people...because of their bigotry." The New York Post's Page Six on Wednesday spotlighted how the Occupy Wall Street-supporting filmmaker served as a presenter at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Moore gave the Best First Film award to...

Michael Moore got a bad review from at least one upset critic at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards...on Monday. Moore was there to present Best First Film to David France for his doc "How To Survive a Plague," a salute to a protest group that stormed St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989 over the AIDS crisis. But Armond White, gadfly critic and former organization chair, began heckling him for "anti-Catholic" rhetoric. Moore raised hackles when he recalled how activists at the height of the epidemic...interrupted Mass at St. Patrick's. Moore stated, "I personally like that one. I say that...

Reagan and John Paul shared a conviction that communism was a moral evil, not just a bad economic system. And Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement that led the anti-communist struggle in Poland, has often paid homage to both men and told the AP in a recent interview that he deeply respected Reagan. "Reagan should have a monument in every city," Walesa said.

GDANSK, Poland — Polish officials unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II on Saturday, honoring two men widely credited in this Eastern European country with helping to topple communism 23 years ago.

It has been awhile since I read Pope John Paul II's encyclical on the relationship between faith and reason, Fides et Ratio (1998). Praying my way through it again, I came across a series of passages sprinkled with pithy observations that I wanted to share. While discussing each man's journey in search of the truth, the Pope writes that "all human beings desire to know, and truth is the proper object of this desire." (FR, 25) We reject falsity to the extent that we identify it, and feel rewarded when we discover truth. "It is this that St. Augustine teaches...

ROME, FEB. 18, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Pope John Paul II will be beatified May 1 in part because his intercession brought the healing of a French nun from Parkinson's Disease. But the Polish Pontiff has brought about many more miracles -- living miracles, according to Legionary of Christ Brother Randall Meissen. Brother Meissen has written a book called "Living Miracles: The Spiritual Sons of John Paul the Great" about priests who trace their vocation back to the influence of this Pope. The book explains what these "JP2 revolution" priests have in common and how God chose to plant and nourish the...

A politcal scientist and the Blessed John Paul II's biographer George Weigel suggests that the Catholic Church should look forward instead of constantly remembering history. His article is addressed to the Polish Catholic friends but the same message can be also directed to the Catholic Church in the West. I think that this is a key paragraph to this article. Polish Catholicism should adopt this future-oriented stance. Remembering the John Paul II years should now be a remembering in service to the future. The 21st century Church in Poland must take up John Paul’s challenge in the 1991 encyclical Redemptoris...

Pope John Paul II -- one of history's very most memorable -- took a great leap toward sainthood today when he was beatified by close associate and successor Benedict XVI in a huge, powerful, emotional ceremony attended by hundreds of thousands -- not as many as the three million who attended his funeral, but one of the largest beatifications in history. With the faithful cheering wildly, Benedict declared the Polish pope "blessed" -- the fastest beatification on record, beating out even the rapid pace of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (by several days).

1. Has the beatification of John Paul II been a rush job, as some have charged? No one said that the beatification of Mother Teresa was rushed, despite the calumnies against her work and reputation promoted by Christopher Hitchens. This process hasn’t been “rushed” either. The only procedural exception Pope Benedict XVI made was the same exception John Paul II made for Mother Teresa: He allowed the investigation to begin without the normal five-year waiting period. The investigative process produced a massive, four-volume study that offers far more detail into the life and accomplishments of Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul...

The Catholic Church has never been immune to political correctness, and there are many "sacred cows" in the Church today that one must never criticize: women, victims of sexual abuse, unionized Catholic school teachers, etc. One group we rarely think of, however, is recent popes. It seems that every pope we can remember in our life-times has to be the best pope ever! Even Pope Benedict—who comes closest my own idea of "the best pope ever"—is just a little too found of referring to his immediate predecessor as "The Great," an ancient title with a particular meaning, which usually takes...

Modern life is noisy... All too easily, gizmos and gadgets make themselves the masters of our daily routine. I-phones, i-pods, i-pads, and I-don’t-know-what-else are multiplying like rabbits. The consequences are strikingly visible among young people. During my time working in youth ministry, I have seen a generation of kids who are allergic to silence. They pop ear buds into their heads and zone out into their own world of customized ruckus. Others are addicted to different types of psychological noise, and like a nervous tick, show withdrawal symptoms when forbidden to send text messages on school property. John Paul II...

John Paul II had ups and downs to his pontificate. However, I do admire the fact that he had a sense of fun. I read that when he came to England in the 80s he was travelling along in the Popemobile. At the side of the road were some Paisley supporters holding banners saying "Everyone blessed by the Pope is condemned to hell." John Paul, seeing their banner, began to bless them as he went by.

An Opportunity for the JPII Generation to Say “Thank You” Knights of Columbus to deliver letters in gratitude for Pope John Paul II at May 1 beatification With the beatification of John Paul II scheduled for May 1, HeadlineBistro.com is inviting the young people who grew up with him as pope – the members of the “JPII Generation” – to say “thank you” to the late Holy Father. From now until April 27, Headline Bistro, a popular news website for Catholics – and an initiative of the Knights of Columbus – is collecting written submissions from Catholic young adults who...

The beatification of John Paul II, which Pope Benedict XVI will preside over on May 1, will mark the first time in 1,000 years a Pontiff has beatified his immediate predecessor. The director of the L’Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, said a Jan. 16 article, “One has to return to the heart of the Middle Ages to find a similar situation.” However, he continued, “even in that context it doesn’t compare with the decision of Benedict XVI: in the last 10 centuries no Pope has raised his immediate predecessor to the altars.” “Pietro del Morrone (Celestine V) was canonized in...

<p>“At present there is no cure for Parkinson’s Disease,” says the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.</p> <p>A French nun named Sister Marie Simon-Pierre knows what it’s like to read those words, as she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when she was just 40.</p>

The John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Ann Arbor, Mich., Oct 26, 2010 / 02:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- To accommodate their rapidly growing community, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist announced today that they will purchase the financially beleaguered John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. near the Catholic University of America.The center, which was the brainchild of the now retired Archbishop of Detroit, Cardinal Adam Maida, has been beset by numerous financial difficulties over the years. Intended to be a museum and Catholic intellectual hub, the center borrowed heavily from the Archdiocese...

On June 2, 1979, the Pope arrived in Poland. What followed will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. He knelt and kissed the ground, the dull gray tarmac of the airport outside Warsaw. The silent churches of Poland at that moment began to ring their bells. The pope traveled by motorcade from the airport to the Old City of Warsaw. The government had feared hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands would line the streets and highways. By the end of the day, with the people lining the streets and highways plus the people massed outside Warsaw...